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Photos copyright Laurence Gouault

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Tuesday, 17 July 2012

More on Brooke Raboutou and 8c, by Stevie Haston.

Well what can I say but wow, and well done. I realized yesterday that a lot of people dont really understand Little Brookes achievement, nor do they understand what an 8c is, or do they know of the immensely talented Erbesfield Raboutou family.

Firstly Brooke is 11 years old and a very tiny 11 at that. She is barely 11 and 3 months, Ondra the wizard of modern rock climbing( see my profile of Ondra here) did his first 8c near the end of his 11th year and not to be sexist or biggest was a tall boy. 8c is still a very big bench mark for female climbers, for instance no British girl or woman has done one. Here is a link to a photo in Desnivel mag with the great Brooke and the great Dani Andrada.

The route little Brooke did is Welcome to Tiujanna at Rodella and is a shortish power endurance route with a biggish slap at the top. Of the 50 or so people to have done it no one has apparently chose to offer a smaller grade.

Brookes big brother led WelcomeTT last year, he is also an extremely talented youth. Brookes mother is a 4 times WC winner and her father Didier Raboutou is one of the strongest climbers I have ever seen, a very talented climbing family in general. Didier was one of the climbers who influenced me the most being the perfect mix of power and technique in the late 80 and early 90s, he was a native of Ariege in France where I live. Robyn runs the very successful ABC climbing training company who have had pupils in the American team.